Hand of God

model before 1898, cast by 1903

Auguste Rodin

Sculptor, French, 1840 - 1917

A hand cupping two nude people, which are significantly smaller in scale than the hand, rises from a rectangular base in this oatmeal-colored, free-standing plaster sculpture. The roughly textured base is angled away from us to our right, so we look into the hand holding the intertwined people with the well-defined thumb to our right. The woman’s body is curled in a U shape, with the back of her shoulders facing us. The man rests his head against her breast as they kiss, and he wraps both arms up around her head. His legs extend to our right, his knees bent and pressed together. His right hip nestles in the curve of the thumb. The area around the people is roughly textured while the hand and most of their bodies are polished smooth. The artist inscribed his name in the lower right corner of the base, “A Rodin.”

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On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G3

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    plaster

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Iris & B. Gerald Cantor

  • Dimensions

    overall: 73 × 75.57 × 67.31 cm (28 3/4 × 29 3/4 × 26 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    2011.100.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Musée Rodin, Paris; gift 1973 to B. Gerald Cantor [1916-1996], Los Angeles;[1] Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, Los Angeles; gift 2011 to NGA.
[1] Mr. Cantor was offered the plaster as a gift in a letter of 21 June 1973 from Cécile Goldscheider, chief curator of the Musée Rodin (copy in NGA curatorial files, kindly provided in March 2013 by François Blanchetière, curator, Musée Rodin).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1903

  • Possibly Venice Biennale, Fifth Exhibition, 1903, no. 23 in Room L.

1948

  • Auguste Rodin, 1840-1917, Kunsthalle Basel, 1948.

1967

  • Possibly Mostri di Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Academia di Francia, Villa Medici, Rome, 1967, no. 21 (the dimensions in the catalogue do not match NGA 2011.100.1, although Gerald Cantor was told his plaster was shown in the exhibition).

1986

  • Rodin: The B. Gerald Cantor Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, no. 65, repro.

Bibliography

1986

  • Miller, Joan Vita, and Gary Marotta. Rodin: The B. Gerald Cantor Collection. New York, 1986: 147.

Inscriptions

on face of base below thumb: A Rodin; on face of base below little finger: La Main de Dieu offerte par le / Musée Rodin à Monsieur B. Gerald CANTOR

Wikidata ID

Q63863745

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